Lines
by Gerbilfriend
Summary: Blur: time goes by slowly when you're immortal
1. Blur

Slowly, steadily Youko loses track of time, at first its easy, a month- then two as she counts the days that she has been the Glory-King of Kei. The way that more and more she stops hear Japanese and starts speaking the language.

* * *

Her second year goes by, she talks to Keiki more as she slowly straightens out the court. Shokei sees the state of her wardrobe and her and Gyokuyo ally against her in order to "improve" on it.

* * *

Her sixth passes with Keiki incredibly on edge, he settles as they go into her seventh year.

The fields grow greener as time goes by, she sneaks down from the palace when she can in between lessons on ruling that grow spaser as more council meetings replace them and talking and diplomacy and all the small important things that go into running a kingdom.

She visits food stalls and merchants and talks to beggars, the number of them shrinks with every visit, and slowly learns the paths of her city (and all the best ways out of the place).

* * *

She stops thinking of Japan, starts thinking of Wa. Not of home, just the other land that she plans for visitors from, the Kaikakyu. She finds the old procedures for them and helps to write new one, Suzu helps with that. With making sure there are places that they can go, to learn the language live.

* * *

Time continues to flow, she knows when it is, what she has to do that day and the next what she needs to do in the future. There's no time anymore for her to count the years. She has more important things to do.

One day she slips out using one of her newer routes, the mounts all know her by this point and she steals out quietly, leaving her mount in a wooded quiet area before heading back to the city.

She's sitting at her favorite food stall, quickly shoveling noodles into her mouth (Keiki and Shoukei would lecture her if they saw her doing this) when the stall owner looks at her.

"I swear it's like you haven't aged a day" he says. Youko feels her heart stop, her hair is covered as it always is these days. Her shade of red is rare, and the days where her face was unknown here are long gone, she knows that. He goes back to work, another person has come in and they need to be fed.

* * *

The comment stays with her. She has seen signs of change down below, of course she had. Children growing older, just two trips ago (she had needed a break and snuck down. She had been yelled at afterwards but it had been worth it she had needed a reminder of what she was working for) and one of her favorite venders to talk to (they always had the best info on the Sen province, things that she would not have been able to learn otherwise. Had been working with their kid, the same one that she had seen in their arms before).

That night she sees a vision of Wa, there are two people standing before a grave, a man and a women. With a shock she realizes that these were? Are? Her parents. They have buried her and the grave looks old.

It hits her then. She looks at the calendars in the way that she had stopped doing, she took the throne twenty years ago.


	2. Kings

Koshou has always been loyal to the King, more correctly, to the idea of a King. He had been born in the chaos of a reign change and remembers it well. Remembers the way his parents faces had gotten more and more drawn as the years went by and how they rejoiced at the new King's ascension. "This is a blessing" they had said, their eyes full of hope, full of dreams and Koshou can't help but smile with them.

A year later it was just him and Sekki, his parents lost to the chaos of a reign change.

* * *

The taxes in Wa grow worse by the years, thirty, forty, fifty percent- the King will help us he reminds himself.

* * *

Years later he has lived to see a third King ascend and he decides enough, he has seen his little brother (so smart, to smart to be stuck in a dead end job with no future) grow and give up on university. The taxes are so high it is impossible to live with. He wants to yell at the King who was his parents hope (a different King now, they change so fast!) but no matter how loudly he screams it wouldn't reach the place (even he knows that).

* * *

Enough, he decides. He will make his voice reach.

* * *

Sekki rolls his eyes but helps and before he knows it people are listening, he's not alone in his anger anymore. He's not alone in wanting change. They will get the King to listen- they have too.

* * *

Fighting is easier than he thought it would be. He's a straight minded guy, plotting and secrecy isn't his thing.

Its bloody and painful and every casualty hurts because these people believed in him but he can do battle, he can do fighting. He will raise a riot, the King will listen- she has too.

* * *

He didn't think of what would happen when the battle was over. Before he knows it he is standing numb as he watches Yoshi (odd, stubborn Yoshi who doesn't know when to stop and talks to no one and doesn't tell anyone where she's from. Yoshi who is better with a sword than anyone he has ever met, who walked right into the leaders circle with her poise and determination) is riding on the back of the Kirin and his brain shorts out.

The King has heard him (his parents were right about hope).

* * *

Somehow he ends up Daiboku- him, a peasant from Wa is on the register, is trusted with watching the Kings back (he can't help but think of it like that, like it is still Yoshi and him in a rebellion that no one knows will succeed fighting side by side against all odds)

* * *

He isn't sure about General Ryuu, she is something sure and its great they found Taiki-sama but still, her presence is a danger to Kei and more importantly to its King.

He didn't want to be proven right.

The news leaves him with his heart in his throat, he knew he should stay but hadn't wanted to. He had wanted to give them space, had stayed back and now this.

It had been seconds and he would have failed the King (his King).

He sits in the inner palace and waits for his judgment.

* * *

Koshou is loyal to the King, more specifically he is loyal to Nakajima Youko, Kei's fierce Red Child. His is loyal to the King who is always asking questions of anyone who will listen, always asking about what can she do, what to the people need. He is loyal to the King who listens and does her best. He is loyal to Nakajima Youko, the King of Kei.


End file.
